Watch your tongue!

For if we could control our tongues, we would be perfect

and could also control ourselves in every other way. James 3: 2b NIV

Do we really understand the power of words, of our words. What if we have more power that we realized? What difference would that make to you? Imagine the power to speak things into existence!

We use words to express and to encourage, to hurt and to love. Words can curse and boast, care and belittle. Our words can be used to debate and to dishonour, to dispel and to dismiss, to prove and to promise, to sympathize and to celebrate! What about the words we casually and repeatedly use on ourselves - often more harsh than those offered to others! Words are sometimes thrown about with such wild abandon until, not only does the message become unclear, but the words themselves lose all meaning. How is it possible that such different outcomes flow from the same source: the same mind, the same heart?

WE are created in God's image - you and I. We are a likeness of Him. There is a family resemblance: the same accent or cheekbones, so to speak. He spoke the world and all its wonders, dangers, beauty, and mystery, into existence. So imagine that every time you open your mouth to speak, you actually create something in the universe. What if a kind word spoken now eventually created some physical improvement in the world sometime in the future, near or far? What if harmful words create un-health, dis-ease in our own bodies and in those of people around us? What if speaking is more than just communication, but has a physical consequence both internally and externally to the world around us?

Of course, speaking "well" takes practice. It will likely require attention and intention. Some undoing of old habits, building up of new ones. New ways to "create" as we speak while remaining authentic and sincere and true. It may be that this skill, this power, needs to develop in you: One. Word. At. A. Time. Adding one word here, and deleting another one there, from the words you think and say. What might a practice like this might build over time. What growth? What changes around us? What good might it bring to you, your family, your community, your world? Start with just a one-word change, add or delete. I'd love to hear your stories of how words changed your world.

And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth.

Surely my brothers and sisters, this is not right! ...

No you can't draw fresh water from a salty spring. James 3:10 NIV